The Silent, Insidious Worldwide Epidemic and I Plan to Celebtate Tonight

My Numbers for Today

• Fasting Blood Glucose Level:  99 mg/dl
• Weight: 189 lbs.
• Exercise:  45 minute bike ride and it was warm and humid this morning, just the way I like it. 
• Mood:  9.00.  It's my birthday and I feel great despite sucky business. 

Menu:

• Breakfast:  Oatmeal with craisins, a  fruit salad of Texas ruby red Rio Star grapefruit, sliced strawberries and  grapes.  
• Lunch:  Massive quantities of pizza and some fruit (I love pizza and it's my birthday, get over it)
• Dinner:  Rib-eye steak dinner at Tony's Mexican Restaurant and Cantina.  This is a tradition with me, get over it, and I am going to have two Manhattans.  
• Snacks.  None.  Too much food on the menu already.  It's my birthday and you are getting over it, but I am not getting stupid. 

Diabetes: Worldwide Epidemic.  But Not Today

Okay, I am being a bit flip, it's my birthday and I plan on doing a bit of celebrating.  I have more of them in my past than I will in my future so I plan on making the best of it.  I feel great, I am going to have a fine dinner with my very best friend, The Charming Mrs. SWMBO.

This is my birthday week celebration and it all ends with my anniversary on Monday.  Life is short and I try make the most of it while I can, even the small moments.

Really, life seems to be mostly made up of small moments when I think of it.  Celebrate the moment as the saying goes.  

Behind it all is the acknowledgement that I had a problem and I got over it.  Some say it will dog me for the rest of my life.  Maybe.  In my entirely non-educated view, I beat type 2 diabetes.  I wasn't really hard, it just took some determination and goal setting. The good news is that I am just going to get better.

Today I am 59.  I don't feel any different than I did at 25.  Okay, the knees are a bit creaky, but guys half my age have that and worse, so no big whoop.  As Jack LaLanne once said, "Age is just a number.  It's doesn't mean a thing."  It does, but that is probably the best attitude any of us can have.

I was going to go over this article that diabetes is a growing problem the world over for a variety of reasons.  All but one are avoidable.  But I am not.  I feel good and I am going celebrate a bit of my life.  I am going to enjoy some foods I like and probably should avoid, but I will avoid them tomorrow.  Tomorrow's fasting glucose reading could be a doozy.  If so, I will just get on my bicycle and go for a ride.

Was My Mother a Dietary Criminal?

First, the numbers on this early, for Houston, TX, spring morning.

• Fasting Blood Glucose Level:  110 mg/dl.   Late night supper and I probably should have stopped after the vegetable tray and hummus The Charming Mrs. SWMBO and had late in the afternoon snack.  Excuses, excuses, excuses.  
• Weight:  190lbs. 
• Exercise:  Forgot to set the alarm and got up too late.  Excuses, excuses, excuses. 
• Mood:  7.0.  Monday in spades. I don't like not getting in my morning ride. 

The Menu:

• Breakfast:  Banana and a Texas Rio Star grapefruit.  Not really hungry this morning, which is unusual for me.  Must be lack of exercise 
• Lunch:   Last of the barbecue tempeh sandwich with cole slaw.  
• Dinner:  Paula Dean's Taco Soup.  Leftover from Saturday.  The Charming Mrs. SWMBO outdid herself on this batch. 
• Snacks: A can of V8.  I love this stuff.

Was My Mother a Dietary Criminal?

Steve Cooksey runs an informative and entertaining website called the Diabetes Warrior.  He's a former type 2 diabetic who took diabetes medication and insulin.  In short, his health was a disaster area.

He changed. He adopted the Paleo Diet, exercised, lost lots of weight, got his blood glucose down to normal levels and is very enthused about his new life.  He tells his story with the passion of the reformed sinner.  He wants everyone to know about his success because almost anyone he believes can be just as successful as he is. 

For his efforts, passion and success he is being sued by the North Carolina Board of Dietetics and Nutritionists.  They say he was acting as a dietician with no proper certification.  He says he is just enthused about a dietary approach that worked for him.  I say the North Carolina Board of Dietetics and Nutritionists was getting nervous about his success.  If someone reads his website and wants to do what he did, what business is it of anyone else, board certified or not?  If people like what worked for Steve and it works for them, fine.  If not, well, on to something else. 

My mom was constantly telling me things like "eat your vegetables" and "go out and get some exercise."  Really not too much different from what Steve has been saying.  She also packed my lunch for nearly every day for 12 years.  So does that my mom and who knows how many moms dietary criminals who need to be silenced and brought to heel?  I am beginning to think yes.

A few days ago in North Carolina a girl who brought her lunch from home, packed by her mother, was found wanting by the food police at the school.  She couldn't eat it and had to take it back home. The girl as given the approved food from the cafeteria and the mother sent a bill for the meal.  The mother had the temerity to pack food, all reasonable choices, that her daughter liked to eat, just not what the school food cops thought she should have. 

Yes we have some severe dietary issues in this county.  Diabetes is a growing problem and it's expected to get worse. So is government intervention the cure?  No, central planning never works,  not that that won't stop them from trying.

I think this is only the beginning to the Food Wars.

The Numbers for Today:

• Fasting Blood Glucose:  103 mg/dl.  Okay.  Still working off the cookies from Sunday I guess
• Weight:  190 lbs. 
• Exercise:  Nothing.  Got up too late.  I feel bad for not doing it, too.
• Mood:  6.0  No exercise, work sucks. 

The Menu for Today:

• Breakfast:  Oatmeal with soy milk and a fruit salad of Texas Rio Star pink grapefruit.
• Lunch:  Two bean burritos (al fresco no less).  A carb nightmare maybe, but it's cheap, tasty and really kind of low fat. All of which may now be bad for me.
• Dinner: Split pea, navy bean, lime bean sauce (made in the crockpot) over brown Spanish rice.  The rice was easy to make.  Cook the brown rice as usual in the pressure cooker and add a can of fire roasted salsa.  Simple. 
• Snacks:  Busy day, no nibbles and just made dinner when I got home.  As I said, sucky day.  

Get Hip, Eat Like a Caveman. 

Eat like a caveman, that may be the key to a long healthy life, even though they rarely had one.  The Paleo diet is growing in popularity and the diet is pretty simple, really. If you can hunt it, fish it, pull it off of a tree or out of the ground, it's good. It is mostly protein and fat, little carbohydrates, no grains, no legumes and no dairy.  Fat is not considered a problem, just don't get it from vegetable sources such as canola, corn or safflower oil and do get it from olive, fish and coconut oils.   Is lard okay, I wonder?  Vegetable oil sources have omega-6 oils and those lead to systemic inflammation. 

If you are on the Mediterranean diet, omega-6 is okay. So are me vegetable oils, just not so much of it. 

The argument for this diet is that this is what ate while evolving into humans.  That sounds logical, I guess. Benefits to eating it supporters say is that it lowers insulin and ends diabetes and maybe prevent degenerative aging diseases as cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer's. Controlling insulin also controls inflammation. 

Inflammation and the need to control it is popping up in more and more articles recently.  Inflammation of what is never mentioned and the causes seem to be often contradictory.  It's late and I am tired, so I will just acknowledge for now that inflammation of whatever by whatever is bad.  Great.  One more think to worry about.

This was taken from an article by Dr. Christopher K. Nagy and I did borrow a few of his lines.  To get on the Paleo diet, he recommends several books:  “The Paleo Solution” by Robb Wolf, “The Primal Blueprint” by Mark Sisson and “Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It” by Gary Taubes.  I have read a lot about Gary Taubes' book and it has a lot of fans. 

So does it work?  It does have its supporters.  If you think it sounds good and could work for you, try it. 

No pizza?  Ever? 

Bread: Diet News to Get You Confused.

The Numbers:

• Fasting Blood Glucose Level:  94 mg/dl.  Go Team!
• Weight:  190 lbs.
• Exercise:  45 minutes with the bike hooked up to the trainer.  Foggy morning and the air was soupy, not at all pleasant for a ride. 
• Mood:  8.5.  It's Friday!

Menu:

• Breakfast:  One slice of pizza (nature's most perfect food) from yesterday.  Hey, I use turkey pepperoni.  The lack of fat is a lot easier on the stomach. 
• Lunch:  Fried Catfish.  My big, fattening splurge for the day, along with some tasty curly cue fries.  The healthy part was the few shreds of lettuce and the sliver of a very unripe tomato.  I loved every minute if it. 
• Dinner:  Grilled salmon with some sauteed vegetables and seasoned rice.  
• Snacks:  Some chips and salsa.  Hey, cooked tomato is supposed to contain something that is good for prostrate health.  That's my excuse, anyway, to moderately enjoy salty corn chips and spicy salsa. Sheesh, I seem to need an excuse for anything I enjoy these days. 

Bread:  Staff of Life or Deadly Killer? 

According to two  separate articles I have read recently, the answer is yes.


Anyone who knows me knows that I have one culinary skill, making bread.  Even at that I keep it simple, either just some basic bread in a loaf pan or pizza dough to make our standard Thursday night fare.  Making it at home always makes the house smell wonderful and toasted homemade bread is breakfast at its finest. (I just realized I have been avoiding toast for breakfast now for long while.  My sandwich consumption has also gone way down. Fear of carbohydrates again.)

So, because things I seem to like are in someone's view bad for me I was more than distressed to read of this book: Bread is the Devil: Win the Weight Loss Battle by Taking Control of Your Diet Demons.  Oh, dear, the devil?  Really?  That's kind of extreme for something that smells so nice, and it is.  Read beyond the shocking headline and this just grabs on to common sense.  Eat, no enjoy, moderate portions of whole grain breads.  Whole grains in general, including whole grain bread, can be part of sound, lifetime diet regimen.  Big news there, really. A good summary is here.

Carbohydrates in general can raise blood glucose and insulin levels and that is a problem for type 2 diabetics.  Simple carbohydrates quickly spike glucose and insulin levels way up.  Complex carbohydrates from whole grains, and vegetable and legumes, don't.  It's that simple. 

With that in mind I came across this from Dr. McDougall.  He cites this study done at Michigan State University (my alma mater, too) that eating more bread in general is a good way to lose weight and lower cholesterol levels.  For some reason, white bread was better than high-fiber bread.  I infer from this that high-fiber is whole grain, but that may not be necessarily true, either.

While it does not mention any affects on blood glucose levels, in general losing weight is a sure way to control blood glucose and insulin levels, as does lowering fat in the blood.  Fat in the blood also impedes cell absorption of insulin I have read.  So, this study and Dr. McDougall says moderately filling up on various whole grains and legumes is good for you.

So, what do I learn from this?  Just like mom said, too much of anything is bad for you. Find a diet regime that you can live with the rest of your life and stick to it. Don't be humorless about it, either.  Life is too short no matter how healthful you eat. 

Paula Deen Mania

First, lets get my stuff out of the way.

Today's numbers:

• Fasting Blood Glucose Level: 101 mg/dl.  One silly mg/dl longer.  Sorry.  I've used that joke before. Checkout #5 if you are interested and the joke is probably not worth the wait. 
• Weight:  191ish lbs.  Almost 190, but let's not get false hope.  It is or it isn't.
• Exercise:  45 min bike ride.
• Mood:  7.5  Business sucks.  

 Today's Menu:

• Breakfast:  Tofu quiche with kale, onions and mushrooms with tomatilla sauce.
• Lunch:  Leftover taco meat wrapped in a pita (an international meal!) and a gala apple from Michigan.
• Dinner: Fish tacos. 
• Snacks:  A few Sylvia's Chips.   

Paula Deen in the News. 

I saw this yesterday about Paula Deens Most Outrageous Recipes, 8 of them.  The one pictured here is the Lady's Brunch Burger.  I think I may forgo the Bo Burger for this on the things-to-eat-lots-of-if-I-have-a-terminal-illness list.  Bacon, fried egg over easy cooked butter, and nestled between what looks like a Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut. Actually, the article doesn't say what the doughnut is other than glazed, but it looks like a Krispy Kreme. 

There is also a Krispy Kreme bread pudding, a Twinkie pie and Deep Fried Mac and Cheese.  If she eats this stuff any more than just very occasionally I can see why she has diabetes issues.  I can also imagine other health issues.  She is known by many for foods that have something for everyone to criticize -- fat, cholesterol, dairy, meat, sugar, butter and simple carbohydrates galore, and never mind the serving size.  She often says everything in moderation.  So did Julie Child.  It seems to have worked for Julia.  Not so much for Paula.  

Don't get me wrong, I am not tsk tisking Paula for her diet choices.  That's her business and I think she is a very entertaining lady.  Watching her programs is a lot of fun and she seem to be having a ball cooking her take on Southern Cuisine.  Not everything she makes is a code red heart attack on a plate.  The Charming Mrs. SWMBO often makes her taco soup.  It can be made with lots of vegetables and low fat meat.  It's great for a quick dinner or lunch from the fridge. It's also filling and inexpensive and easy to make if you have the time.

Eating the Fried Butter or the Bacon and Cheese Meatloaf or the Peanut Butter Cheese Fudge every once in a while is going to harm no one. Eating Elvis's favorite sandwich, the Fried Peanut Butter Banana Sandwich could be a harmless celebration of the the King.  Just don't do it all of the time or you will wind up like the King, minus the royalty checks to leave to your heirs. 

Paula Deen has a condition that is very fixable. Eat better, eat less, exercise and lose weight.  In most cases, this will end the condition. She is being criticized for keeping her condition hidden for three years and for treating her diabetes mostly with a drug call Victoza and she has an endorsement deal with the drug's maker, Novo Nordisk.  If she's happy and making some money, more power to her.  That's all her business. Her job is to entertain people, not offer diet advice.

I have read two opposing views on how to fix her condition and this is what I really find interesting, how opposite they are. 

One is from Dr. John McDougall.  His advice is to go on a vegan, low fat, high carbohydrate diet.  He offers lots of evidence why this is the best diet to fix Paula Deen's diabetes and can cite lots of patients who have benefited from this approach.

The other is from Steve Cooksey who runs a website called Diabetes-Warrior.  He is a former type 2 Diabetic and he advocates the Paleo diet, which I have written about and mostly consists of grilled meats and vegetables and few carbohydrates.  He offers lots of evidence why this is the best diet to fix Paula Deen's diabetes and can cite lots of testimonials of people have benefited from this approach.

Both do agree that just taking a drug is a poor choice to handle the problem. 

Who's right?  Beats me.  My take is find a diet that you like, that works for you and that you can stick with. save for the occasional Lady's Brunch burger as a special treat to make life fun. 

Update.  To be fair, Steve Cooksey does offer a Paleo diet with a Vegan Twist.  Maybe these Mr. Cooksey and Dr McDougall can agree after all.